APPENDIX 3 Terms and definitions used in the satellite account for culture and media 2018

This appendix describes the terms used, to the extent that they are relevant to this satellite account for culture and media. The relevant transactions in the national accounts are then explained, together with the supply and use table, terms relating to labour and the various distinct sectors (CBS, 2019).

A. Transactions in the national accounts

Domestic production (basic prices)

The total of goods and services produced, also known as the output. There are three different kinds of output:

• market output: goods and services which are available on the market or which are intended to be marketed in future;
• output for own final use: goods and services for personal consumption or for investments by the same business entity which produced those goods and services;
• non-market output: goods and services which are made available to other entities either free of charge or at economically non-significant prices.

The output is valued at basic prices. These are the prices experienced by producers themselves: for each branch of industry, the taxes on products are deducted and the subsidies on products are added. Transport costs charged separately by the producer are not included; neither are the value adjustments of financial and non-financial assets (production assets) during the reporting period.

The production of all business entities operating in the Netherlands – including those with foreign owners – is included, as are government bodies and other non-commercial organisations.

Intermediate consumption (purchase prices)

Goods and services used as input in a production process, excluding fixed assets (investment goods). These are goods which are incorporated into other products or entirely consumed during the production process (this is by definition the case for hired-in services). In line with international agreements, goods purchased or services hired are considered to be fixed assets rather than input for intermediate consumption (investment) if they can be used in the production process for at least one year. Goods and services that are considered to be intermediate consumption are valued at the purchase price level that is applicable to similar goods or services at the time of use.

Value added (basic prices)

The value of all goods and services produced (production value or output) minus the value of goods and services that were used up during this production (intermediate consumption).

Gross domestic product (GDP)

The gross domestic product (GDP) is a way to measure the size of the economy. GDP at market prices is the end result of the productive activities of domestic production entities.
In the satellite account for culture and media, the GDP from production is the sum of the gross value added of all branches of industry and the balance of taxes and subsidies on products.

Taxes on products

Taxes that must be paid per unit of a certain good or service that is produced or imported. The tax may be a certain amount per quantitative unit of a good or service; alternatively, it can be calculated as a certain percentage of the price per unit or of the value of the goods and services produced or traded.

Subsidies on products

Subsidies granted per unit of a good or a service that is produced or imported. The subsidies are linked to the value or the quantity of the product.

Import of goods and services

The flows of goods and services (sale, exchange and donations) provided by non-residents (of the Netherlands) to residents. Goods imports take place when the economic ownership of goods is transferred by a non-resident to a resident, regardless of whether a physical cross-border movement of goods takes place. A company or organisation is considered to be resident for this purpose if it has been active in the Netherlands for at least one year, regardless of whether this organisation is owned by an entity based outside the Netherlands.

Export of goods and services

The flows of goods and services (sale, exchange and donations) provided by residents (of the Netherlands) to non-residents. Goods exports take place when the economic ownership of goods is transferred by a resident to a non-resident, regardless of whether a physical cross-border movement of goods takes place. A company or organisation is considered to be resident for this purpose if it has been active in the Netherlands for at least one year, regardless of whether this organisation is owned by an entity based outside the Netherlands.

Re-exports

Goods which are imported and subsequently exported again, after having undergone no or only minor industrial processing.

Consumer spending by households

The following borderline cases fall under consumer spending by households:

• income in kind, such as housing, nutrition and clothing and a company car;
• services for homes in which the owner him- or herself lives (the ‘enjoyment of residence’) and for which there is thus no actual paid rent. The value of these services is determined using the rental prices of comparable homes;
• products produced for personal use, for instance in agriculture. The value of these products is equivalent to the market price for these or comparable products;
• durable consumer goods, such as passenger cars, domestic appliances, furniture and clothing. However, purchases of homes by private individuals are considered to be investments in fixed assets by households.

Consumer spending by NPIs for households

By convention, consumer spending by non-profit institutions (NPIs) for households includes the non-market production in this sector, with the exception of own account investments.

Consumer spending by the government

Consumer spending by the government faces a problem relating to the nature of government production. Only some government services are actually sold (market production). The majority of government production is paid for out of the generic funds and made generally available at no cost (non-market production). Because this raises some serious hurdles when allocating it to users, no such allocation is made. By convention, the government is treated as the consumer of the services it produces itself. Due to the lack of market prices, the value of the government’s consumer spending is calculated using the costs:

Gross fixed capital formation

Expenditure on production assets which are used for more than one year during a production process. These include company buildings, houses, company vehicles or machinery and contrast with goods or services which are used up during the production process, such as iron ore (intermediate consumption). Purchases of cars, furniture, etc. by households are not counted as investments. Fixed assets may decline in value over the years, whether through wear and tear or because, for example, the technology becomes outdated (economic obsolescence). This is referred to as consumption of fixed assets (or depreciation). In the case of gross investments, this is not deducted from the value of the investments; however, it is deducted from net investments.

Stock changes

Changes in raw materials, semi-finished goods, work in progress (unfinished products such as ships or machinery) and finished products at the producers’ locations and changes in commercial stock levels. Work in progress in the construction industry is not counted as stockholding. Positive stock changes come about when goods have been produced in the reporting year but have not yet been sold. Additions are also made to stocks when goods have been purchased in the reporting year but have not yet been used in the production process or, in the case of trade, not yet been sold. Negative stock changes come about when goods are removed from existing stocks to be sold or used in the production process.

Changes in stock are valued in such a way as not to create any profit or loss on stocks through price changes. For these purposes, the initial stock and the closing stock of each good is valued at the same price; raw materials are valued at the applicable average purchase price during the period, finished products at the average sale price and work in progress at the average cost price.

Balance of the purchase and sale of valuables

This concerns the balance of purchases and sales of valuables, such as precious stones, gold, antiquities, art objects and jewellery, which are purchased primarily as investment objects. In the national accounts, this transaction is generally combined with the stock changes.

Net investments

Investments in fixed assets (gross) plus the stock changes, including the balance of the purchase and sale of valuables, minus the sale of fixed assets used, less the depreciation.

Balance of the purchase and sale of non-produced non-financial assets

Primarily land transactions. The majority is made up of the sale by local authority land development companies to investors in buildings and homes of land that has been made ready for construction. Purchases and sales of land are valued excluding VAT and transfer costs; these costs form part of the investments in fixed assets.

Income from capital

The income that the owner of a receivable or of tangible non-produced assets receives in exchange for providing financial resources or making tangible non-produced assets available to another institutional entity. Income from capital consists of: interest, profit distributions (dividends and income extracted from quasi-corporations), retained profits from direct overseas investments, income from capital allocated to policy holders and income from land and mineral reserves.

Benefit payments

Benefit payments, either in money or in kind, that are allocated to households to relieve the financial burden for households arising from certain risks and needs (such as illness, disability, incapacity to work, old age, surviving relatives and unemployment). These benefits are distributed as social payments in money and social payments in kind.

Subsidies

Payments made by the government and the European Union (EU) to producers with the aim of reducing the prices of products, maintaining employment or providing reasonable remuneration for the factors of production.

Income transfers

All payments for which no direct reciprocation is expected and which neither affect the payer’s capital nor serve as financing for the recipient’s long-term expenditure.

Capital transfers

Payments for which no reciprocation is expected and which  affect the payer’s capital or serve as financing for the recipient’s investments in fixed assets or other long-term expenditure. A distinction is made between two partial transactions: investment contributions and other capital transfers.

Other expenditure

Other expenditure includes:

• Taxes paid on production and imports;
• Taxes on income and wealth;
• Social insurance payments made directly by employers.

B. Supply and use table

The supply table

The supply table shows the supply of the various goods and services, differentiated according to product group. The supply equals what is produced in the Netherlands plus what is imported. The table shows domestic production by industries and the imports for the various product groups.

Each row of the supply table provides a description of the supply of a specific product group. Each column of the supply table describes the total production of an industry.

The use table

The use table describes the use of goods and services, differentiated according to product groups. A distinction is made between intermediate consumption by industries and final expenditure. The final expenditure is divided into exports of goods and of services, consumer spending by households and by the government, gross investments in fixed assets and stock changes.

Each row of the use table provides a description of the destinations of a specific product group. The total of each row of the use table is by definition equal to the total of the corresponding row in the supply table. However, some additional columns must be included as a result of the different valuations used in the supply and use tables.
Each column in the intermediate section of the use table describes which products an industry uses in the production process, together with the value added that is generated in the production process. The total gross value added (at basic prices) of the industry and the intermediate consumption is by definition equal to the production value at basic prices for that industry.

B.I Aligning the use table and macro-totals

Some extra rows and columns have been included in the use table to achieve alignment with the macro-totals, as explained below.

Consumption by residents outside the Netherlands

The consumer spending has been corrected for this. This amount has been reverted to imports in a separate column: ‘consumption by residents outside the Netherlands’.

C. Labour

Employed persons

Employed persons are all persons who have one or more jobs as an employee and/or self-employed person with an economic entity located in the Netherlands (a company, institution or private household).

The category of working persons includes all persons who carry out paid work, even if only for one or a few hours a week, even if they:

• work legally as such, but without registration for income tax and social security (‘undeclared work’);
• are temporarily not at work, but have continued receipt of wages or salary (for instance owing to illness or hold-ups due to frost);
• have taken temporary unpaid leave.

Working persons can be divided into the categories of employees and self-employed persons. They may live in the Netherlands or in another country.

Employees / self-employed persons

Employees are persons carrying out paid work under an employment contract for an economic entity and whose payment (in money and/or in kind) is recorded as employee remuneration. Self-employed persons are persons carrying out work on their own account or at their own risk in their own business or practice, or in the business or practice of a family member, or in a profession conducted independently. This category includes domestic workers, childminders, babysitters, newspaper delivery workers and people who distribute flyers. Family members working for a family business are considered to be self-employed, unless they have entered into an employment contract.

Labour year

The labour volume in labour years is a measure of labour volume, calculated by converting all full-time and part-time jobs to full-time jobs; this is also known as the full-time equivalent (FTE). The full-time equivalent of a job is determined by dividing the agreed annual working hours for that job by the agreed annual working hours for a full-time job with the company in question. In this way, when taken together, the volume of work of two half jobs totals one FTE. The full-time equivalent of a self-employed person’s job is determined by dividing the usual weekly working hours associated with that job by the average working hours of self-employed persons’ jobs working 37 hours or more per week (in the same branch of industry).

D. Sectors

The accounting system provides an overview of all economic partial processes, such as production, income distribution and financing, in the form of successive accounts. These accounts are not only drawn up for the economy as a whole, but also for five different domestic sectors. In this way, the accounting system describes:

• for each economic partial process, the role played by each sector, such as the government’s role in income redistribution and financial institutions’ role in financing;
• for each sector, the extent and cohesion of the various economic activities and how they relate to the rest of the economy and to other countries.

The sectors are divided, according to internationally established criteria, into non-financial corporations, financial institutions, government, households and non-profit institutions for households.

In the supply and use tables, the producers are grouped by industry rather than by sector.

Government

The government sector includes, firstly, all statutory entities concerned with the redistribution of income and capital. In the Netherlands, these entities are ministries, local authorities, provinces, water boards, etc. Secondly, it includes institutions which are controlled and primarily financed by the aforementioned entities and which do not also produce goods for the market.

Non-market production is relevant if the sales returns are consistently less than 50 percent of the production costs. In this way, organisations such as ProRail and the Open University fall under government.

Government bodies which are active outside the Netherlands, such as embassies, are also part of the government sector. Conversely, foreign embassies and international institutions, such as Europol and the International Court of Justice, are not allocated to government. In principle, government corporations (such as Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch railways), Schiphol, BNG Bank) and quasi-corporations are not part of the government sector. Neither is De Nederlandsche Bank (the Dutch central bank).

The government sector consists of three subsectors: central government, local government and statutory social insurance institutions.

Central government includes:

• the national government (ministries and budget funds such as the Municipal Fund, Provincial Fund and Infrastructure Fund);
• universities;
• product and business associations;
• a group of nationwide foundations and organisations.

Examples of nationwide foundations and organisations include:

• research institutions (including NWO, KNAW and institutes linked to the universities);
• idealistic organisations (including Oxfam Novib);
• organisationally independent government services such as ProRail and Statistics Netherlands (CBS).

Local government includes:

• provinces and water boards;
• local authorities, excluding their quasi-corporations which are grouped with the non-financial or the financial corporations (including local authority transport companies);
• joint schemes (collaborations between local authorities in the areas of waste processing, water purification, fire services, sheltered employment, etc.);
• organisationally independent local government services, such as job placement offices and regional police forces;
• private local institutions in the areas of labour, social work, culture and education such as jobs pools, the Jeugd Werk Garantieplan (young people’s work guarantee scheme), asylum seekers’ centres, museums, libraries, organisationally independent institutes of education and tutoring services.

For a more detailed explanation, as well as the complete list of institutions CBS considers to be part of the government sector, see Wat rekent CBS tot de sector overheid? (‘What does CBS include in the government sector?’) (CBS, 2018).

Households

The households sector includes all natural persons who have remained in the Netherlands for longer than one year, regardless of their nationality. Conversely, Dutch people who have remained outside the Netherlands for longer than one year are not included in Dutch households. The category of households includes not only people who are living alone or with family, but also people in care facilities, retirement homes for elderly people, prisons and boarding institutions. In the event that the people included in households own their own business, these businesses are also counted towards the households. This is the case for self-employed persons (sole proprietorships). Large, unincorporated, independently operating enterprises (quasi-corporations) are allocated to (non-financial or financial) corporations.

Non-profit institutions for households

The non-profit institutions for households (NPIs for households) sector includes foundations and associations whose resources are sourced primarily from voluntary donations by households and from income from capital. Examples of these organisations include religious institutions, philanthropic organisations, political parties, labour unions and associations in the area of culture, sports and recreation.

D.I The relationship between sectors and industries

In the supply and use tables, the business entities are grouped by industry; that is to say, by economic activity. Because the main systems are in alignment, there is an exact relationship between the sectors and the industries. The industries with which the various sectors correspond are indicated below.

Government

The majority of the government sector consists of the industries of public administration and public services and subsidised education. There are also entities in some other industries which belong to the government sector, for example:

• specific activities by local authorities, such as cleaning services (waste management industry), sheltered workplaces (other industry), municipal health services (healthcare industry) and exceptional local authority schemes for these activities;
• job placement offices, job pools and the Jeugd Werk Garantieplan (employment agencies and job placement services industry);
• institutes linked to universities (research industry);
• ProRail (storage, transport services industry);
• shelters and asylum seeker centres (care and welfare industry);
• idealistic organisations, such as Oxfam Novib and SNV Netherlands Development Organisation.

Households

The households sector includes all natural persons and their businesses. Self-employed persons and homeowners fall within this category. Home ownership forms part of the industry of renting, buying and selling real estate. In principle, there can be self-employed persons in any industry, with the exception of industries that involve specific government activities.

Non-profit institutions for households

The foundations and associations included in the sector of NPIs for households are particularly common in the industries of healthcare, care and welfare, culture, sports and recreation and other services.

References

CBS (2019). Nationale rekeningen 2018 (‘National Accounts 2018’), The Hague/Heerlen/Bonaire. National Accounts 2018 (cbs.nl)

CBS (2018). Wat rekent CBS tot de sector overheid? (‘What does CBS include in the government sector?’), The Hague/Heerlen/Bonaire. Wat rekent het CBS tot de sector overheid? (page in Dutch)